1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention is a computer-based modeling system designed to improve the overall performance of components and systems that degrade with age. The invention combines expert rules, probabilistic models, and deterministic models to evaluate and predict the effect of component aging on component life extension, operational readiness, maintenance effectiveness, and safety of a system along with evaluating and recommending maintenance and operational actions to improve the overall performance of the modeled system.
2. Description Of The Related Art
Current methods used to obtain, analyze and model complex systems, such as nuclear power plant information, to determine age degradation of the various systems within the complex system are inefficient, time consuming, and many times unreliable. Each component of the plant or complex system is analyzed separately to obtain a numerical indication of its state. The numerical value must then be interpreted by a plant operator to determine the current and potential state of the component. To determine the overall state of the system, each individual component of the system must be analyzed in relation to the other components, for example, the separate parts of a reactor coolant pump must be combined and analyzed together to determine the actual state of the reactor coolant pump. The current methods emphasize the separate components of a system, instead of how and why these components interact.
Many current modeling methods use a deterministic approach which reviews the physical characteristics of a system, for example, temperature, pressure, etc., and evaluates the system solely on the basis of this quantitative information. Other modeling methods use a statistical and probabilistic approach to compare the present state of a component with its past history and to determine what the component and the system might do next. The current modeling methods do not emphasize an heuristic approach to consider the dynamic interaction between the components of a system or between the systems themselves when determining the present and future performance of a plant.